Silver Spring Slaying Victim Had Received Donated Kidney

A Maryland man killed during a home invasion Saturday had received a life-saving kidney donation from a stranger just a few years ago. 

Jonathan Harris, 26, was a participant in a huge kidney-transplant exchange involving 32 people, a donation program that was covered on the "Today" show when it happened in 2010. His mother, Patricia, had donated her own kidney to someone else.

And it was Harris' mother who discovered her son's body this weekend, in the Silver Spring house they shared.

"She was crying, and she was saying, 'My baby, my baby," said neighbor Linda Montgomery. "He's 26 years old, but he's still the baby."

Harris' kidney had failed when he was just 12 years old. His brother gave him another kidney, but that had started to fail as well. So he joined the large kidney exchange.

"I will move heaven and earth for my son," said his mother, Patricia, at the time. "But more than that, I can improve the quality of life for someone else. That’s what God wants us to do.”

In that same interview, Jonathan Harris said, "I thought the whole time I had to do this alone, but I didn’t have to."

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Harris had also survived chronic asthma and open-heart surgery.

Montgomery County police say Harris was killed during a robbery. Officers were called to his home in the 2300 block of Eagle Rock Lane in the Layhill area at 10:47 a.m.

When they arrived, they discovered Harris with trauma to the top portion of his body.

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